Helping and Hindering Israel

Once Bush was elected president in 1988, he showed his bark and bite to Israel on more than one occasion.

To be fair, Bush, America’s 41st president and father of its 43rd, also came to the aid of Israel and the Jewish People.

In 1991, Bush prodded the UN General Assembly to repeal its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism. It was his personal intervention with the government of Ethiopia in 1991 that facilitated Operation Solomon, in which Israel airlifted 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to safety in 36 hours. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Bush worked directly with the Israeli government to help Soviet Jews emigrate to Israel.

This latter effort came with strings attached.

“During Shamir’s tenure, there were all kinds of issues between us,” said Arye Mekel in an interview with Mishpacha four years ago. Mekel served as foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir when Secretary of State James Baker publicly scolded the prime minster, telling him to call the White House phone number when he was serious about making peace.

“There was no agreement on settlements or the peace process, but the most difficult challenge came in 1992 when Russian Jews were arriving in Israel in great numbers,” Mekel said.

Expecting an influx of one million Soviet Jews, Israel asked Washington for $10 billion in loan guarantees so Israel could borrow at low US interest rates and resettle the Russian Jews. The US said yes, but — the Bush administration threatened to deduct any money Israel spent on settlements from the loan guarantees. Prime Minister Shamir refused to comply with this point, and the deal was held up.

“That was also an election year in Israel, and the US more than hinted they would give the loan guarantees to Shamir’s successor [Yitzhak Rabin] if Shamir was defeated, which is what happened,” Mekel said.